Right on Side of Life, Left on Side of Death (El Rusbo Demystifies The Schiavo Battle)

RUSH: With the Schiavo case at the end of the program on Friday, I said, "I'm going to throw some gasoline on the fire." I said, "Isn't it amazing that when it comes to the subject of life, you don't find any Democrats on that side?" It just continues to amaze me. Even when the subject is life of a human being, the Democrats always seem to come down on the opposite side of life. So I'm watching all these debates over the weekend and I'm watching some of the debate in the House late last night, and there it was. It was clearly as a bell for anyone to see. The people that are on the side of the life were the Republicans, and the lib media is going nuts today and went nuts yesterday because they've got this memo that went out I guess from 25 Senate Republicans telling their members that this is an important moral issue, that there are certain political ramifications or gains to be had from this, and so they want to use that as an argument to support their side. I haven't seen the left yet articulate an argument that has to do with this woman. Their arguments have to do, "Well, the Republicans are just being hypocritical. The Republicans this; the Republicans that. Republicans like federalism and they hate federalism. Republicans want the courts to act and they don't like the courts and they want the Congress to act; they don't like the Congress."

All these arguments aimed at "hypocrisy" -- but that doesn't touch on the subject. Republicans could be as hypocritical as anybody could be. We're talking about a subject, though -- the life of a woman, the life of a woman who is not brain dead, who is not in a perpetual vegetative state. She's not on life support. We're talking about the life of a woman, and I don't care what the left wants to say about me or my friends on the right or our arguments. That's no way to discuss this woman's life. To say this woman deserves to die because Republican arguments are hypocritical -- and I'm not even granting the premise; I'm just asking you, "Is this the basis on which we wish to decide this woman's future, because some people arguing for her life may be hypocritical?" I mean, that's what the left is saying. Again, I'm not accepting the premise that there's any hypocrisy on the right. I dealt with that Friday. The Congress has full authority to do what they did last night: full authority, enumerated power in the Constitution. They had the full authority to do it, but none of this... You know, the left is arguing, "Weeeell, that means we're just going to have Congress go in again. We set a precedent here. Next time a single case comes up -- single person, single family -- we're going to have the Congress get in gear on that."

Anybody remember the Declaration of Independence, founding document? We were all created with certain inalienable rights, among them LIFE. (chuckles) It's number one! If government is not in charge with protecting life, who is according to our structure? But I just continue to marvel. I think, however this case ends up, here's a question to ask yourself. This is a question to ask yourself, ladies and gentlemen: What would the Democrats have done as a party had this case come up last year, last June, last July, last August, last September, last October? What would they have done? What would their position have been going into the presidential race? One thing we know for sure, the Republican position or conservative position would have been the same, would be the same regardless the time of year and regardless the political calendar. Can we say that about the left? Don't know because the past has already happened, but I wonder -- and stop and think of this. The left, ever since the election, has been moaning and whining about the fact that "values" creamed them. They got creamed by values and morals, and you hayseed, church-going religious extremists in the red states. You're the ones responsible for their plight. You're the ones ruining the country. You're the ones who have seen to it the left can't get its power base back in Washington. You're the ones that are screwing this country all up left and right. You're the reason the Europeans hate us. You're the reason the Iraqis hated us. You're the reason that the terrorists attacked us -- you extremists Republicans in the red state you church going Holy Roller hayseeds!

Yet here comes an opportunity for them. You know, they've been going to this guy George Lackoff out at Berkeley, and they've been talking. Even Howard Dean over the weekend went calling Republicans "brain dead." That's real sensitive. During this particular time he goes out and calls Republicans "brain dead," and then says, "We're gonna talk about four issues." I don't know what they are yet. They haven't figured them out. "We've got to figure out a new way to talk about it," and yet when the rubber meets the road, when you put the pedal to the metal, when you have an opportunity to try to tell the American people that you're with them on values, what the hell happens? You revert to form. The liberals have reverted to form, and it's just stunning. Be it Elian Gonzales or be it this, it seems like the left never finds a way to align itself with liberty and with life. It's stunning to me. It literal is stunning as a human being. Forget the fact I'm a conservative. Forget the fact that I'm engaging in battles here in the arena of ideas. Just from the sense of a humanity standpoint, I'm stunned, and I listen to some of these arguments last night and I didn't hear one argument... Here's the point. This is the best way to put it. The Democrats think the woman ought to be killed! The Democrats think woman ought to die The family wants to kill her, ought to kill her. Let it go. They don't say that. They don't have the guts to say what they think. They argue about Republican hypocrisy! They argue about precedents in Congress. They argue about the evil tactics.

They argue about political memos the Republican senators are sending around to each other, all these things that are on the periphery, all these things that really get down to irrelevance to the subject at hand -- and when you ask what would these clowns do if it had happened before the election, I don't think anybody...who knows? And that's not a good answer. Who knows what they would do. There's no way of knowing, and that doesn't recommend them to us, that you don't know where they're going to fall out on the side of life. Obviously we probably do have a better guess than just wild or haphazard. They'd probably be consistent to their base. That's what they're doing. You know, all this talk about Republicans being just politically oriented toward their base and this whole thing is nothing more than a political show, what are the Democrats doing? Think they don't see politics in this? Think the Democrats aren't looking at this as a political opportunity to shore up part of their base that's being fractured, the feminist, pro-choice base, and wherever else it resides out there? All this talk about the federal government is usurping powers it doesn't have the federal government getting involved in these sorts of things. Remember the Rodney King case? Does anybody remember the Rodney King case? Rodney King was beaten to a pulp when he was on methamphetamine, right, at that gas station and was tried out Simi Valley, and the cops were acquitted, and there were riots and Los Angeles was a-flames; it was ablaze, and so what did George H. W. Bush do?

He sent the justice department out there to retry the whole case under the guise of the civil rights division of the justice department. Guess what? They got a different result, and why was that done? Purely political. Bush was trying to appeal as moderate Republicans do sometimes, to the enemy. But there was local jurisdiction, Simi Valley, California, acquittal of the cops. Oh, no, not the result we want -- and who was demanding that the federal government get involved in that? It was the left! That's who George H. W. Bush was responding to. The judge that has the case now, US federal judge, has ordered a hearing this afternoon to consider a request to have feeding resumed for Terri Sky-vo -- or Shy-vo. You know, you really pronounce this name is Sha-vo? But everybody pronounces it Shy-vo so that's how they want to pronounce it. I'll pronounce it that way, but actually if you go to Italy this is pronounced "Ski-yah-vo," but we're not going to get into that. I'm not going to get distracted by that. Anyway, "US District Judge James Whitmore announced the three p.m. hearing hours after a lawyer for Schiavo's parents filed a request with the court in Tampa for the resumption of feeding." Whitmore is a Clinton appointee. Just want to put that on the table. Don't know if it matters. (sigh) We'll find out. It won't be long before we find out if it matters.

RUSH: The story yesterday in the New York Times, it's unbelievable. "Starvation Death is Not Painful." Now, wait a second. If we were starving prisons at Abu Ghraib, what would the New York Times say? The New York Times actually went out and sought experts on whether starvation is painful. "From the data that is available, it is not a horrific thing at all, Dr. Linda Emmanuel, the founder of the..." Well, then why are we worried about Africa? Why are we worried about Third World poverty? If starvation is not a painful death and people can't feed themselves, why don't we let them die? Their lives are useless. They don't count. They live in Third World villages. They're all kinds of backwards populations all around the world. Their people are starving to death. But it's painless, the New York Times says -- and these people clearly don't want to live the way they're living. Would you want to live in mud, insect-inhabited jungles and so forth? Would you want to live in dire poverty with no ability to get food and have to depend on somebody as incompetent as the UN to get food to you? Would you rather give up hope because vanquished hope is painful; you sit around waiting for the UN to give you food, it never comes? So how would you like to just be told, 'There's no hope. There's no food. You're going to die," but when you read this story from America's New York Times, your death may take two weeks, may take a month, it's going to be painless. Here's the quote:

"'From the data that is available, it is not a horrific thing at all,' Dr. Linda Emmanuel, the founder for the Education for Physicians in End-of-Life Care Project at Northwestern University." What a department to have to an American university: Education for Physicians in End-of-Life Care Project at the Northwestern University. "'In fact, declining food and water is a common way that terminally ill patients end their lives, because it's less painful than violent suicide and requires no help from doctors.'" Really? Didn't the doctor have to remove the tube? The doctor had to remove the tube -- but there you go, folks. So the New York Times puts it out there. Now to me, starvation, we don't tolerate it anywhere. We don't tolerate purposeful starvation anywhere -- and, by the way, the lexicon that's going around, she's not "terminally ill." She does not have "a life-threatening disease." She is not "brain dead." You know, these terms have catapulted themselves into the public lexicon on this, and they have served to misinform a whole bunch of people who think they're using compassion in deciding what this woman's fate ought to be. The Times also cites Dr. Sean Morrison, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York who "insists that starvation victims generally sleep into a peaceful coma. 'It's very quiet. It's very dignified. It's very gentle.'" Now, the Times also went out and talked to people who disagree, but they didn't put that in the headline.

"Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and an attorney and consultant for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, says that in fact, for a conscious patient like Terri Schiavo, death by starvation will be fraught with agony. In his book 'Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder,' Smith reports: A conscious person would feel it just as you and I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack." You ever seen a child anywhere in the world who is suffering from starvation? You've seen the potbelly? -- and she is not unconscious. She's not in a coma. This might put her into a coma. "'They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes and heaving and vomiting.'" I mean, this whole thing to me is gotten sick because the proponents of this woman's death are going out and finding all of these excuses or rationalizations or what have you, and all of them are based on the premise of backing up the contention of the people who have a certain desired outcome here. So we go out and we say, "Well, the Republicans' arguments are hypocrite. The Republicans trying to make this into politics. We've gotta let the woman die. Suicide, not this, but starvation, painless, painless. In fact it's very peaceful, very dignified. In fact we should all starving! It's so painless and it's so dignified that we should all choose to starve to death as a means of ending our lives when the time comes.

It boggles the mind to me, folks. This is moral relativism. This is it: You redefine morality so that it fits your current definition of it, and more importantly you redefine morality so that your view is moral, because that's the only way you can deal with it is for you to tell yourself that your morality is indeed moral and you're doing the right thing. This is being called a "right-to-die case." It's not a right-to-die case, but if you must call it a right-to-die case, how about this? How about the right to live? How about the right not to be killed? Do we all have a right in this country to live? Do we have a right not to be killed? Do we have a right not to be tortured by our own government, when we haven't committed a crime and have not been sentenced to death? We have a right to live; we have a right not to be killed. That's fundamental, and it's right as I say in the founding document, the Declaration of Independence. So ingrained in our society is the notion of life that the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, even short of death. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from depriving any person of life without due process of law, and of course this has nothing to do with federalism -- unless you ignore the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Again, who cares about that? Who cares?

Federalism, localism, statism, all of these convoluted arguments that are coming up by the left they're bringing up in order to mask cover what's really being discussed here, what's really on the table. What are we trying to achieve? That's the question: What are retrying to achieve here? Well, some people are trying to save this woman's life and other people aren't, and the people that don't want to save her life don't want to say that so they're coming up with other arguments to discuss and to mask what their true objective is. I'll tell you what, folks, it's laughable. It's laughable that the Democrats' position on this has nothing to do with politics. "Oh, yeah, only the Republicans here engage in politics. Yeah, trying to shore up that hayseed Holy Roller religious extremist base in the red states, yes, yes, yes! It's all politics. The Democrats aren't doing that, no, no, no! Democrats never engage in politics, ladies and gentlemen. Democrats are interested in larger issues, of course." What are we trying to achieve here? And you're not going to get a single answer to that because that's where the argument is. It is a simple question: What are we trying to achieve? Some are trying to achieve the objective of saving the woman's life. Some are not. Some have other interests. Some people are actually... I get the impression there's so much anger and rage from certain people on the left, I actually get the impression they'll be mad if this woman lives, and I don't understand it. I really don't understand it. Even despite all the abortions and despite all this, given what they think they lost the last election, I don't understand it.

RUSH: Here is Joel in Miami. Joel, welcome to the EIB Network, sir. It's great to have you with us.

CALLER: Hey, listen, I've been listening for about two years now. I normally agree with you, but on the issue of Terri Schiavo I've been following it since before it made national headlines. As I understand, Michael Schiavo -- Sky-vo, Shy-vo -- is her legal guardian. Isn't it Florida law that the legal guardian makes the final decision regardless of what anybody else says? Now, I understand that death by starvation is horrible. That's all fine and dandy --

CALLER: Why are we making legislation for one person when there could be other cases similar to that and we're totally ignoring them?

RUSH: I have a question for you. When did you decide it's okay for a husband to kill a wife?

RUSH: Yes, you are! Yes, you are! She did not ask for it. There is nothing in writing. We cannot assume what she knows. He says so. There's a lot of questions about this guy. No, no. You're giving him the right to kill his wife because he wants to.

RUSH: You are falling prey to the hype that has surrounded the case. You're believing she's brain dead. You're believing that she's in a total vegetative state. You're believing that she cannot possibly recovery which means she'll never have a "normal" life. You're falling prey to all this you're assuming she's laying there dead. You're assuming she's unconscious. She's not. You're assuming all these things that are incorrect and you think it's probable compassionate and this guy's got the right. "He's the guardian. He's the husband. We always give the husband the family members the rights in these matters. Bam! Pull the plug." So the questions come to you: When did you begin to believe that one spouse could decide to kill another?

CALLER: No, Rush. If I was Michael, I'd turn her over to her parents, just to be rid of it, just to be rid of it! Because if they want to keep her alive and I don't, do you know what? Then you take care of him [sic] because she's your daughter, but I'm not. He's Michael. That's his decision to make. Whether I agree with it or not, whether it's compassionate or not --

RUSH: All right, all right, all right. I've got your point of view. I gave you mine, and it didn't make an impact. I'm not going to answer your question. I answered it with my own. That is my answer to your question. I don't happen to believe that a husband has the right to kill a wife or vice-versa, no matter how many times it may be desired, (laughing) but I still don't have the -- sorry for trying to inject a little stereotypical humor in the situation, folks. Let me read a little bit to you. James Taranto, Best of the Web today. I just got it. James Taranto is the editor of this online blog, the Opinion Journal website. It's the free side of the Wall Street Journal. "Congress has granted Terri Schiavo a reprieve in an extraordinary midnight session, the House..." blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. "Supporters of Michael Schiavo's efforts to end his wife's life have asked how conservatives who claim to believe in the sanctity of marriage can fail to respect his husbandly authority." That's another one of these liberal things. "Why, you right-wing zealots in the red states! Why, you believe in the sanctity of marriage..." Tell me, when does the sanctity of marriage permit one spouse to kill another? This is what I mean, Mr. Snerdley. These arguments that the left are mounting here are purely irrelevant. You can poke holes if you want at Republican "hypocrisy;" try to make that case but you're avoiding the issue every time you do it. So he says here, "Supporters of Michael Schiavo's effort to end his wife's life have asked how conservatives who claim to account in the sanctity of marriage can fail to respect his husbandly authority. The most obvious answer is a man's authority as a husband does not supersede his wife's rights as a human being, a principle we thought we'd never see liberals question."

That's Taranto's way of saying: What gives him the right to decide she dies? What about her human rights versus his husbandly rights? "But why do those of us who aren't right-to-life absolutists..." as Mr. Taranto writes, "[W]hy do those of us who are not right-to-life absolutists side with Mrs. Schiavo's parents who want to keep her alive over her husband who wants her dead? It's a fair question, and it raises another one. What kind of husband is Michael Schiavo? According to news reports, Mr. Schiavo lives with a woman named Jodi Centonze, and they have two children together. Surely any court would consider this evidence on its face of adultery, and this is no mere fling. A sympathetic 2003 profile in the Orlando Sentinel describes Centonze as Mr. Schiavo's 'fiancée.' Mr. Schiavo, in other words, is virtually remarried. Short of outright bigamy, his relationship with Centonze," or maybe Centonze, I'm not sure how she pronounces it, "as thoroughgoing a violation of his marriage vows it is possible to imagine. The point here is not to castigate Mr. Schiavo for behaving badly. It would require a heroic degree of self-sacrifice for a man to forego love and sex in order to remain faithful to an incapacitated wife and it would be unreasonable to hold an ordinary man to a heroic standard. But it is equally unreasonable to let Mr. Schiavo have it both ways. If he wants to assert his marital authority to do his wife in, the least society can expect in return is the refrain from making a mockery of his marital obligations. The grimaced irony in this tragic case is that those who want Terri Schiavo dead are resting their argument on the fiction that her major is still alive," meaning exactly what I ask. What right does he have to kill his wife now? He's not been behaving as though he's married to her. I know it's been going on a long time, but I happen to have this handy when I got the call from Joel down in Miami, and I wanted to pass this on.

Feeding tubes are artificial?

How about baby bottles are they artificial? If so then perhaps we should let infants who's mothers can't nurse die of starvation?

I have faced this decision and I think the guidance that "heroic" measures need not be taken. But sustenance, food.

People come out of comas after longer than 3 months.

There is more to this decision than your post acknowledges.

""Our cause is noble;
it is the cause of mankind!"

George Washington, letter to James Warren, March 31, 1779

Why is Terri being treated no better than slave to her derelict and abusive husband's wishes?

I wonder how many fans Rush lost over this one. Many people, even here, have an almost pathological desire to see this woman dead. If they could smash in her skull with a chunk of concrete, I believe they would convince themselves it was the moral thing to do.

Feeding tubes are artificial?

How about baby bottles are they artificial? If so then perhaps we should let infants who's mothers can't nurse die of starvation?

What, another liberal?

Yes, feeding tubes are artificial, and so are baby bottle; and aspirins for that matter. (And bourbon is artificial. Can man live without bourbon?) I never suggested that everything artificial is bad.

I only said that I would not want to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means. Do I have that right, or must you decide, in Teddy Kennedy fashion, for me because you think you know what is better for me and my family than I do?

ML/NJ

You are just being logically inelegant by drawing the line at "artificial".

How about kidney dialysis, should they all die because this is an artificial process? Christopher Reeve on a portable respirator, pretty artificial. How about prostheses? Don't want people walking on artificial limbs.

I am objecting because by blurring the clear line between sustenance and medical measures you make it easier to starve someone who is helpless.

By the way Teddy would probably want to kill Terri Schiavo because her "husband" found a more active partner and he wouldn't want to invade the lovebird's privacy.

Rush is the man, and I always like his show. But I noticed a significant number of Democrats -- 46, I believe -- voted FOR the bill last night, which 4 Republicans said, "No." I was glad to see it wasn't severely along party lines, indicating it is a more of a human issue than a political issue. So... I was a little disappointed that Laura and Rush gave it the political spin this morning.

No doubt, some of the Dems speeches were absolutely appalling and they generally support the right-to-die death culture. But, at least in this vote, I saw some humanity.

You are just being logically inelegant by drawing the line at "artificial".

I think you should read what I wrote. The line I drew was three continuous months of not being able to recognize my children and Mozart.

ML/NJ

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